Mike: Good day. The economic news for this day is primarily the MBA Mortgage Applications Index, which showed weakness due to increasing interest rates. This is the busiest time of year for home sales, yet mortgage application increased only 1.1% for the week and that’s with historically low interest rates. Refinancing decreased 12% due to those same higher interest rates. Not to be the bearer of bad news, but there seems ot be a complacency about the housing market that all will be better soon, when actually this situation continues to show problems and unemployment is one of those drivers along with increasing interest rates. There is a positive aspect to higher interest rates and that is lower home prices. As interest rates increase, home prices will decrease, since people can only afford a certain level of payment. When homes become affordable this crises will see an end, but not until that time.

A secondary issue with increasing interest rates is that those who have tried to refinance and are in the system may lose that preferred interest rate that they originally desired. With banks being very slow to respond to the deluge of callers for lower refinancing and purchase applications, those deals may no longer exist. A friend of mine has been trying for months to get Citi to file the paperwork for a lower interest rate, but the rep said they are so far behind that it will still take months to get everything in order. So if you applied for a 4.5% refinance or mortgage rate and didn’t lock it in for at least three months, those rates won’t be available if banks delay the process past the lock date.

NEW YORK, June 10 (Reuters) – A spike in U.S. mortgage rates drove down total home loan applications last week as demand for refinancing shriveled to the lowest level since November, the Mortgage Bankers Association said on Wednesday.

Borrowing costs have soared as bond yields have risen, even as the Federal Reserve has sopped up hundreds of billions of dollars in bonds to keep rates low and stimulate the housing market.

The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate jumped 0.32 percentage point in the June 5 week to 5.57 percent. That was nearly a full point above the record low rate of 4.61 percent in March, the trade group said.

Mike: I see the two below stories are wonder how they connect. First you have large companies lining up for free federal billions while in the second story you have these same businesses threatening to move profits and jobs offshore because they may have to pay taxes. So they run with hands extended to the government stimulus giveaway, but then complain when taxes have to be paid. It’s disturbing that all these companies grew to their gigantic size with US taxpayer funded government grants, lobbyist influences on Congress when Congress writes law, tax breaks for every conceivable reason and lower effective tax rates than most other industrialized countries. Yet these same companies that grew large and extremely profitable on the backs of the US taxpayer are now complaining that they may have to pay fair taxes. So take the taxpayer money, grow to enormous proportions and then take your jobs and profits offshore. Just another example of the slow destruction of the US economy by business and its insatiable demand for excessive profit.

Who is going to pay for the billions in bailouts, stimulus funding and increased deficits? Why the taxpayer of course, while big companies shirk their responsibilities by moving profits offshore.

– NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Big companies, ranging from AT&T to Dell to FedEx to Tyson Foods, are among those cashing in on the billions of dollars of federal stimulus money that is rolling out the door.

Some $4.3 billion of federal money is already funding more than 1,500 projects. Of that total, 85%, or $3.6 billion worth, has been funneled to big business.

– – REDMOND, Washington (CNN) — Should a bridge that would connect two campuses at Microsoft’s headquarters be funded with $11 million from the federal stimulus package?

Critics of using stimulus money for the bridge say it would give the software giant a break on a pet project. They also say it serves as a warning sign of how some stimulus money is not being used to finance new projects but is being diverted to public works already under way.

– I know, it sounds like an exaggeration. But look at it this way. If there were a power ranking of U.S. companies, like the ones compiled by football writers for National Football League teams, Microsoft would surely be first or second to Google. But last week, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer came to Washington to announce what Microsoft would do if Obama’s multinational tax policy is enacted.

“It makes U.S. jobs more expensive,” Ballmer said, “We’re better off taking lots of people and moving them out of the U.S.” If Microsoft, perhaps our most competitive company, has to abandon the U.S. in order to continue to thrive, who exactly is going to stay?

June 10 (Bloomberg) — Mortgage applications in the U.S. fell last week to the lowest level since February as a jump in borrowing costs discouraged refinancing.

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s index of applications to purchase a home or refinance a loan dropped 7.2 percent to 611 in the week ended June 5, from 658.7 the prior week. The group’s refinancing gauge declined 12 percent, while the purchase index gained 1.1 percent.

– The Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey, released Tuesday, estimates how many U.S. firms are hiring in a given month. These detailed figures usually come about 30 days after the monthly unemployment rate is released.

Tuesday’s report said there were 2.5 million job openings in April, the lowest number on record since this survey began in December 2000.

Given that approximately 13.7 million Americans were unemployed in April, that works out to nearly 5.5 job seekers for every job opening that month.

– NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Chrysler and Italian automaker Fiat on Wednesday officially signed a strategic alliance brokered by the U.S. government, one day after the Supreme Court cleared the path for the deal.

Fiat will initially take a 20% stake in the company, which can go up to 35% if it reaches certain fuel-efficiency goals.

The vote came after more than a dozen people addressed the board during a standing-room only meeting at the Government Center in uptown Charlotte. Board members said they had no choice but to make the cuts and voted with little discussion.

– The jobs of the 18 deputies who had previously been suggested for layoff were, at least temporarily, spared as Sheriff Tom Allman was directed Tuesday by the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors to proceed with the cutting of five sheriff’s service technicians.

– To close a $50,000 budget gap, selectmen voted to lay off six employees for three weeks each through the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends June 30. That includes two employees in the police department and one each in the fire, highway, Board of Health and town building departments.

– More than a dozen school personnel, including seven teachers at the high school and middle school, will be laid off as part of a plan that will eliminate or reduce the hours of more than two dozen town employees.

– The Stark County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities said Tuesday it will eliminate at least five jobs at its Southgate and Eastgate schools, cut the paid hours of 10 employees by 20 percent and not employ an occupational therapist this summer.

– Ford Motor Co. plans to lay off 350 workers from its Louisville Assembly Plant early next month, union and Ford officials said yesterday.

United Auto Workers and Ford officials are in negotiations that could delay or stop the action, but local union leaders are bracing for job losses, said Steve Stone, building chairman for UAW Local 862 at the Fern Valley Road plant.

– Talbots Inc. continued to trim its work force with another round of layoffs affecting 264 people, including nearly 200 employees in Massachusetts, as the apparel retailer reacts to steep sales declines at its stores.

– Stone said 23 people remain on active duty at Dataupia. She would not comment on how many people were laid off. But a data sheet published by the company in April indicated that Dataupia had 60 employees at that time, indicating that about 37 people have lost their jobs. (We’ve updated the Boston Tech Layoff Tracker accordingly.)

– Wednesday, Ixia (XXIA: News ), a provider of test systems for Internet Protocol-based infrastructure and services, said that it will implement a company-wide restructuring initiative, which includes a substantial reduction of staff. As part of the restructuring the company expects a charge in the second quarter.

– We’ve confirmed with a representative from MRM that the San Francisco office has undergone layoffs today, though we could not get a concrete number. In total we are hearing anywhere from 20-33 are going home without jobs due to the lost Microsoft CRM business.

– Ann’s House of Nuts will close its manufacturing facility in Jessup and lay off 83 employees as of July 13, according to a notice the company filed with the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.

– General Motors Corp. has decided to extend the temporary summertime closing of seven factories, including its car plant in Oshawa, because widespread temporary shutdowns will not be enough to control a burgeoning supply of some models, the company said yesterday.

– The firm generated revenues of £104.3m over the 12-month period, down from £125.6m the previous year. As a result it has launched a redundancy consultation with up to 85 jobs affected, including fee-earners, support staff and secretaries.

-Anyone looking for a job? (Sick humor) Look at twitter.com/larimercounty or twitter.com/fortcollinsjobs They have quite a few listed, it is easy to find, read, etc. They both contain helpful information as well as other information regarding Larimer County.

– It’s bad enough to lose your job. But it’s a double whammy when you lose your health insurance, too. Two decades ago, Congress began requiring companies to allow their former employees to stay on the group health insurance plan for 18 months (more if the employee is totally disabled or if the employee dies and leaves dependent children) as long as they paid the full cost of coverage plus a small administrative fee.

– The “clean-energy economy” grew 9.1 percent between 1998 and 2007 to 777,000 jobs. While that is just half a percent of all U.S. jobs, the clean-energy economy is poised to grow significantly with financial support from the public and private sectors, the Pew (pdf) concludes.

– DANVERS — Millipore Corp. opened a new manufacturing facility inside its Cherry Hill Corporate Center building yesterday in a move that will produce 120 jobs here by the end of the year, company officials said.